CHICAGO -- New Florida coach Tom Rowe met with captain Derek MacKenzie and the rest of the Panthers' leadership on Monday. He talked to the whole team on Tuesday.

Rowe knows Gerard Gallant is well-liked in Florida's locker room, and Rowe wanted to be as transparent as possible on why the coach was let go just 22 games into the season.

"I came in and I told them, I said 'Listen, we're not going to change a whole lot. We need to tweak a few things,'" Rowe said.

"But if I came in here and wasn't sensitive to that, it just wouldn't work. I love our room. I love our leadership group, and we've got the right guys to help us get going."

The good news for Rowe is the Panthers don't have to travel very far. They were on the fringe of the Eastern Conference playoff race heading into their first game since Gallant was fired.

"We all feel very responsible for what's going on," MacKenzie said before Tuesday's matchup with the Chicago Blackhawks.

"Quite frankly, our performance to this point hasn't been good enough. Unfortunately, you know, Gerard was the end result of that."

"The message has been sent and we need to be better," MacKenzie continued, "and we will be, starting tonight."

Gallant was believed to be the right guy for Florida after he coached the Panthers to a franchise-record 103 points and the Atlantic Division title last season.

He got a contract extension in January that runs through the 2018-19 season, and then-general manager Dale Tallon called him "an ideal fit for our group."

Not so much anymore. At least from the perspective of Florida's front office.

The Panthers dropped to 11-10-1 when they blew a 2-0 lead in a 3-2 loss at Carolina on Sunday night, and that was it for Gallant. The players were informed of Gallant's dismissal, and the coach's luggage was taken off the team bus that was headed to the airport in Raleigh, North Carolina. Assistant coach Mike Kelly also was fired.

The Florida Panthers brain trust was all smiles in January when Gerard Gallant was given a contract extension. Fast forward to November and Gallant is out as coach and Tom Rowe, right, is now behind the bench for president of hockey ops Dale Tallon, left. Jeff Sanzare/NHLI/Getty Images

Gallant then departed the arena in a taxi, drawing criticism from some of the team's fans.

"It was bad the way it all happened, unfortunately," said Rowe, who was promoted to general manager in May in a front-office shakeup that elevated Tallon to president of hockey operations.

"It didn't look good, but I'll tell you right now, we respect him and like him, and Gerard and I had a good relationship."

The Panthers' ownership and other team officials rely heavily on advanced statistics, and Gallant -- who played parts of 11 seasons in the NHL, mostly with the Detroit Red Wings -- was not the biggest fan of analytics.

But Rowe, who returns to the bench on an interim basis, made it sound as if he was only planning small changes, beginning with Florida's defensive zone coverage.

"Really big believer in the D-zone being more area than man-on-man," he said.

Rowe coached Florida's AHL affiliates in Portland and San Antonio before moving into the Panthers' front office. He also served as an assistant with the Hurricanes from 2008-11.

"He's hard-nosed, old-school kind of guy," said Trocheck, who played for Rowe in the minors. "He gets the most of his players by getting them to work hard, make sure everybody's playing the right way."

But Trocheck, who "liked" a handful of pro-Gallant messages on Twitter after the coach was dismissed, said he didn't think coaching was the reason for Florida's disappointing start.

"It's just a matter of us kind of pulling it together," Trocheck said. "Got to come together as a group and realize that we haven't been playing our best hockey and we have a lot more to go."